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The original Gears of War was one of the most popular games of 2006, helping to solidify the Xbox 360's place in the console market. Since then, it's sold about 5 million copies. When word leaked out that a sequel was in the works, many wondered if Epic Games could reach the bar set by the first game. As it turns out, they could. Gears of War 2 will feel very familiar to those who have played its predecessor. Games often have a way of reinventing themselves as sequels come and go, but Epic stuck to the basics of what had already worked so well, and simply set about improving, polishing, and fleshing out the Gears world as much as they could. Read on for the rest of the review.

tester data

Title: Gears of War 2

Developer: Epic Games

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

System: Xbox 360

Reviewer: Soulskill

Score: 9/10

In the first game, humans on a planet called Sera were locked in a struggle against the Locust Horde — a group of misshapen humanoids and their monstrous pets and cohorts. The game's main character, Marcus Fenix, led a group of soldiers known as Delta Squad into the depths of the planet, where they left a very large bomb to try to demolish the source of the Locusts. As we learn in Gears of War 2, that didn't quite work out. The Locust Horde is back, literally digging humanity's last remaining cities out from underneath. Delta Squad's job is to head back into the caves and tunnels of the Locust stronghold and find a way to put a stop to it.

The game is played in third-person mode, usually looking over Fenix's shoulder as he moves throughout the world. Its focus for combat is on the cover system made popular by the first game. Get near a wall and tap a button, and you'll spin around and put your back to it. Using the aiming trigger, you'll peek past the corner, with a cross-hair showing where your bullets will go. You can take cover behind a large variety of objects; tables, half-walls, overturned cars, even mortally wounded enemies. It's very advantageous to take cover; the damage you sustain out in the open is often far too much for a "run-and-gun" style. Some types of cover are better than others; it's pretty funny to blast apart a rickety wooden table with your shotgun, leaving the enemy who was behind it scrambling to get away. You also get a selection of moves you can do from your covered position. You can hop over small barriers, dive from side to side, and shuffle quickly to another covered spot. The AI uses cover as well, and does so realistically for the most part. Enemies lose track of you if you're sneaky, and your teammates don't (typically) get themselves killed easily.

Weaponry in the game is varied and interesting. You have your standard shooter-game implements — handguns, machine guns, shotgun, sniper rifle — and then some flashier hardware as well — flamethrower, grenade launcher, mortar launcher, chain gun. You're also frequently given special weapons to use that are mounted to a platform or vehicle. Turrets, cannons, and volleys of rockets all make an appearance, and they're all quite fun to use. You also have your trusty chainsaw. In most games, a melee weapon is an afterthought; something to use when you've run out of ammo, but nothing more. Gears of War 2 gives you many opportunities to use your chainsaw, and occasionally for very impressive results. The selection of guns for typical room-to-room use is quite good. You can almost always use whichever gun feels best for the task at hand. Between that and the frequency with which special weapon missions are interspersed throughout the game, you really won't have a chance to get tired of a particular style of fighting.

Gears of War 2 maintains a strong focus on changing things up for the player. You'll very rarely find yourself fighting the same enemies for very long, or even fighting in the same way. It's clear that Epic consciously went about stitching together the levels in a way that wouldn't leave the player bored. You'll fight some grunts, then some more impressive enemies, then hop in a vehicle and defend it, or sometimes assault something that's in your way. You'll defend a base with a turret by shooting down incoming mortars, you'll split up the team and take turns covering each other as you move through separate areas, and one section of the game is almost like a platformer. Without spoiling too much, it isn't enemies within the level that are working to send you to your death, but rather the level itself. Even when you're digging out Locust forces room-by-room, you can count on seeing many variations of the "trying-to-kill-you" theme. As drones try to snipe you from cover, Tickers — dog-sized suicide bombers — and packs of scrambling Wretches will swarm toward you. Every so often you'll encounter shield-toting, mace-swinging Maulers, or the tough, ninja-like Kantus. You'll frequently get a chance to engage the large, impressive heavy-hitters of the Gears world — Brumak, Reavers, and Corpsers.

The game's story is more fleshed-out this time around, but not overly so. The cinematics and smaller cutscenes are to-the-point, and are often capped with a Keanu-Reaves-like "Whoa.." moment. In one section, you're driving through a dark, icy cave, trying to avoid notice. When you're faced with no option but to drive off a cliff, the screen goes dark as you land and the vehicle's power fails. As a member of your squad works frantically to get it started again, nasty things roar and rumble at you in the dark, setting up a rather tense situation when your lighting is restored. Other scenes are character-driven; the world is ending, and Epic doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to the atrocities of war. Torture, suicide, euthanasia — this is not a game for young kids. The cutscenes set up enough interest and emotional investment to make you want to grab a rifle and head toward the next objective without taking momentum from the actual fighting; it often seems like you're playing a story that ranges from cool to impressive to downright brutal.

Fighting often seems intense and hectic; Epic isn't above giving you a ton of things to shoot at, but your comrades are reasonably competent, and can be trusted to handle their share of the fight. Several times you'll rush to defend something and end up needing to man one of the aforementioned turrets to shoot down incoming bombs or flying enemies. The turrets are somewhat harder to succeed with, mainly because your targets are usually dodging and weaving through the air, and it can take some practice to keep up with them. You'll also get to fight battles at high speeds on various vehicles, and on... well, on things that aren't strictly vehicles. Things that don't necessarily want you riding them. The game does well at setting up situations where you think, "Man, I wish I could use that," and then actually letting you do it later on.

The levels themselves flow well; you naturally look and go where you're supposed to go, without being obviously herded along. As I mentioned earlier, there are several places where you split up the team, and get to choose one path over another. It's entertaining in the Solo campaign, but even more so in Co-op. You usually have some way to affect the other path, either via objects in the environment, throwing down cover fire, or perhaps lending a helping hand grenade to disperse some enemies who are focused on your partner. The levels look amazing; they use expansive backdrops to feel like really epic spaces, and the art really contributes to the atmosphere of the game. They look much bigger than they are, but you'll still be surprised at how far you can explore them sometimes. Particular events or "gimmicks" tend to be over quickly, like with the "platformer" level I mentioned earlier. You do something enough for it to be entertaining, but not enough to become tedious. This goes back to the game's theme of keeping things moving along, always changing. Gears of War 2 is also filled with a bunch of nice touches — at one point you're trapped in a building that's fallen on its side, and started burning. You head for the elevator, which just barely still works... sideways. As you slide past other burning floors, you get glimpses of various beasts trapped and struggling to get out.

Gears of War 2 does have its annoyances. When you deal a ton of damage to an enemy, he'll drop to the ground, mortally wounded, and start dragging himself away. If one of his teammates reaches him in time, they can heal him, and bring him back into the fight. Unfortunately, with the cover system in this game, it's quite common to make an enemy fall, but have no way to finish him off before he gets revived. It can be frustrating to have this happen several times in a row. The nature of the cover system also impedes movement at times, causing you to become briefly stuck in a place you don't want to be, or to leave cover in a manner other than what you intended. It can be bothersome at times, but I don't know how they could avoid it, especially in the more cramped spaces. There are also times in the game where you simply have too much to shoot at, or the things you need to kill are moving too quickly. I could swear one of the levels near the end took pity on me, after a few tries, by having the incoming Reavers land and stand still so I could mow them down with my turret.

The multi-player aspect of the game shines as well. Going through the campaign on Co-op is a lot of fun, since many of the levels were designed with a second player in mind. You can also have multiple saved campaigns now, which facilitates the occasional game with a friend, or a quick couple of levels at a party. There's also the "Horde" multi-player setting, which is even better for group play. Up to five players cooperate to fight wave after wave of enemies. Each wave gets stronger, and there are 50 in total. They get quite difficult after a while. Tougher enemies start joining the drones, and all enemies start gaining health and doing more damage. You'll have to start managing your ammo, and work with your teammates to keep from getting picked apart one-by-one. If you quit for a while, you can easily return to the wave at which you left off, which is nice for regular group play.

More familiar multi-player modes are available as well. In "Execution," you can only mortally wound enemies with your weapons. To kill them, you need to run up and administer a fairly gruesome killing blow by hand. In "Submission," a character is labeled the "meatflag." Your goal is to mortally wound him, then use him as a human shield while you drag him to a particular spot on the map. There's also "Wingman," where you fight in five teams of two, and of course, "King of the Hill." Other modes include your typical deathmatches. The updated UI and the camera functions are a big improvement over the first game. All of these modes have bot support, which is great for playing alone or in small groups.

Gears of War 2 retains its character as a testosterone-filled action hero game. It reminded me a bit of the movie 300; I get the feeling that the developers routinely went over a design and asked "How can we make this more over-the-top?" The dialogue contributes to that quite a bit. It's harsh, filled with swearing and macho one-liners. Augustus Cole a.k.a. Cole Train is back, and he's just as hilarious as ever. The cutscenes occasionally show members of Delta Squad doing some ridiculously cool stunt that would be right at home in a Mission: Impossible or James Bond movie. And, as I mentioned earlier, you get to interact with some huge, intimidating friends and foes, which lends to the game's epic feel. It's definitely a better, more polished version of the original game, which is really what we were hoping for.

RROD issues have been resolved in the current crop of 360s. And even if you do get it, RROD is warranted for 3 years, free shipping both ways, you get it back in about a 7-10 days from first contacting Microsoft.

800x600 in medium quality gives me 30FPS so I dropped it to low. The thing is games don't really look worse all that quickly anymore it's just people now want to play "High Quality" with 8x AA at 1920 x 1200 or higher resolution.

PS: All the eye candy in the world is not going to help it when the game sucks that bad so what's the point?

It's worth noting that the mouse and keyboard support in the PS3 UT3 version was AWFUL. Terrible mouse lag, only worked in certain types of games, very unconfigurable. It was pretty bad.

The biggest problem is that the console manufacturers don't see the need to push for it. If they saw how many gamers they'd win over by a standardized setup that was well done, they might think twice. I guarantee you that the number one reason stick-to-it PC gamers won't switch to consoles is the lack of a truly decent c

Ignoring the obvious fanboyism, UT3 was a PC game released for the consoles, so the keyboard/mouse decision made sense. GoW2 is a console game that will probably eventually be released for the PC (though they say otherwise at the moment). Gears is made for the controller from the get go.

"TBH, I for one am getting sick of the whole patch, upgrade hardware, upgrade drivers cycle of PC gaming just to play a game at a decent framerate without it crashing."
That's the price you pay for playing games that improve in appearance more frequently than every 5 years.

That's the price you pay for playing games that improve in appearance more frequently than every 5 years.

I'd argue that the visual quality of games don't have to be fixed for the lifetime of a console (compare the titles released at the beginning of the PS2s life to somethign toward the end like God of War).

I also wonder what point is "enough"? From the perspective of game developers, it costs lots more to make a game like Fallout 3 versus Everyday Shooter or Geometry Wars. Nintendo has also shown there is a huge market for games without "top of the line, gritty graphics."

From the users perspective, we've already seen lots of people decide that their home computer is "good enough" to run their apps (Web browsing, email, word processing, spreadsheets). How long before there are enough resources in the average console that they don't HAVE to come out with something within 10 years just to keep up?

I pre-ordered the game. My wife says its the worst thing she's ever witnessed and its not looking good for me keeping the xbox

Hmmm... I pre-ordered Fallout 3. Wife finally saw it (complete with bloodily violent head-exploding take-downs in slow-motion), and commented that it was a bit more violent than the games I usually get. Otherwise she just went away and asked when I'd be done so she could watch some TV.:)

How much worse is Gears2? (or your wife has a ow threshold for "worst thing she's ever witness

Well, it's partially true. I'm a grown man with a wife, and I respect her requests.

She's not trying to control me, it's just that me playing it would make her uncomfortable.

I posed the OP as a funny slashdot-comfortable twist - oh, and once piece of info that's important: she's pregnant. Therefore, my concern for her emotion (read, random bouts of crazy) so far outweighs my desire to play. But... I'll probably come home with it tonight.

5 minutes? You've been lucky... I usually have to wait around 15 for the first match of Horde, and somewhere around 5 - 10 after the first match (no idea why it makes a difference if it's your first or 15th game, but that's what I've noticed).

Blows my mind that this is an issue. There are no doubt at least 60,000 people playing online at any given time, with thousands waiting in queue to be linked up to a game session. How difficult is it to filter the player ranking through the matchmaking servers to find a good session? Even if you don't align well with other players' rankings, it should still join you to an off balance session rather than make you wait (which I believe it does). I'm babbling, but I just don't understand the problems they could be dealing with. It seems fairly simple, to me.

Anybody else have any idea why this problem is more difficult than I'm imagining? What could account for the lengthy matchmaking process?

As opposed to some other games? The one thing I hate about popular PC shooters on the PC is, aside from some kind of Favorite function for your favorite servers, what's your other option for finding a server? Pinging a server list. Which sure is fun in CS 1.6 or CS:S. Waiting for thousands of servers to load in the list then select a server, even with specifics set (location, map, etc)
I know, not the same but similar so much that a few minutes wait time between matches ain't so bad. Maybe it's a little sl

Not much of a gamer, but I've played both Gears Of War games. Can't somebody do something about the obnoxious split-screen?

Maybe zoom the cameras out a little, or split the screen left/right instead of top/bottom since played on a widescreen, or maybe show both players on the same screen with a 3rd-person view as appropriate?

But then that erases console gaming's big advantage over PC gaming: low cost per player. If you're going to splurge for a separate system for each player, you might as well play a PC shooter instead of Gears 2 and benefit from mouse aiming.

But then that erases console gaming's big advantage over PC gaming: low cost per player. If you're going to splurge for a separate system for each player, you might as well play a PC shooter instead of Gears 2 and benefit from mouse aiming.

You're assuming that mouse aiming or indeed the whole PC setup is a, "benefit." In over fifteen years of gaming on nearly every console and quite a few PCs (Windows and Linux) I've yet to actually hear even ONE person tell me that they went console because "it costs less." We go console because it WORKS. I have yet to turn on my 360, put in a game, and have it tell me I've only got two activations left before I need to call the developer and beg to have one more. I have yet to be told my graphics chip isn

Also, for all the time PC gamers spend talking about how much better the mouse is for gaming, I don't really see much of a difference. I can adapt to both equally well, and for my use they both work equally well. Maybe if I were in serious competition it would be a needed edge, but I only play FPSes online once in a blue moon. When I do it's actual skill that sets me behind the other players, not the control scheme.

No matter how good you are at aiming in front of you, I'd like to see you do a 180 degree turn to check behind you quickly, then go back to where you were looking. Hell, even turning around is a pain in the ass. With a mouse, I just twitch my mouse to the right really quick and then back. With a controller, I have ONE speed that I can turn.

Yeah, it's really not an issue that's big enough for me to spend the money it would require to beef up my PC. I said I don't do much online FPS, so that's even less an issue. Typically when a guy is shooting at me from behind in halo, I'm dead before I realize where he's shooting from. What you're talking about is an issue I would pay about $20 to fix, not buy a new video card. And I'd pay $20 NOT to have to mess with installing a game on my computer.

Why do we never hear the other side of the arguement: That a keyboard and mouse completely suck for anything other than FPSs? Yeah if all you want to do is play shooters and RTSs then a PC is great. Have you ever tried playing a platformer on a PC? It's impossible.
I'll take a controller, which is 90 percent as good as a keyboard/mouse for FPSs and infinitely better for the million other kinds of games that PC users know nothing about.

Why do we never hear the other side of the arguement: That a keyboard and mouse completely suck for anything other than FPSs?

Because the other side of the argument is completely irrelevant.

The PC supports gamepads. It always has. There have been gamepad style controllers since MS-DOS such as the Gravis PC Gamepad, and the tradition has continued to this day; you can get console style controllers from all the biggest names in PC controllers... Logitech, Microsoft, and Saitek (now owned by Mad Catz).

Wii Shop Channel games allow multiple activations, but they all have to be on the same hardware serial number. Xbox Live Arcade is slightly more lenient: if your console dies, you can activate your games on a different console, but you have to connect to Live in order to play. That sucks if you're renting a hall for an annual family reunion, as my family does, and Internet access doesn't come with it.

PSN activation is on up to 5 consoles at any given time (and you can deactivate those consoles from your Acc

I have yet to turn on my 360, put in a game, and have it tell me I've only got two activations left before I need to call the developer and beg to have one more.

Try this little experiment:
1. Buy something from the XBLA
2. When finished downloading, turn off your 360 and unplug the network cable.
3. Turn it back on and try to play your newly paid for game
4. Swear about DRM becase you cannot play the new game.

Not every game has this issue, but a large portion does. I initially noticed this when I moved and had no Internet connection for a week. I wasn't too happy that I couldn't play the games on my hard drive that I paid for.

I brought my XBox with me when I moved, and I was able to play downloaded content just fine without a network connection. You need a network connection if you are trying to play that content on a machine that you did not buy the content on (i.e., your original XBox RRoDed and you have a new one).

I have yet to turn on my 360, put in a game, and have it tell me I've only got two activations left before I need to call the developer and beg to have one more.

Try this little experiment:
1. Buy something from the XBLA
2. When finished downloading, turn off your 360 and unplug the network cable.
3. Turn it back on and try to play your newly paid for game
4. Swear about DRM becase you cannot play the new game.

Tried your experiment, couldn't perform #4 on either 360. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I just keep getting stuck at the, "game just work," phase, like most other people.

If anyone had been paying attention in the past year or so they would've noted that MS provides, for free, a tool to use to pull all your Live games onto a newly authorized console an unlimited number of times, but only once per year. While far from ideal (I'm no fan of DRM but let's also be realistic, it ONLY applies to LIVE conte

I've had my 360 for over two years and never seen the RROD. Same can be said for the 5 other people I know who have them. People whose only exposure to the world is through slashdot have a very skewed perspective on things.

And, to further counter your point, there is an entire generation or two of NVIDIA cards in the wild that could fail at any point, all of which ALONE cost as much as an XBOX.

FYI, I've had it happen twice so far but those were with some of the first year or two of units they produced, but the current one I have now has been going fine for almost 2 years now as well so guess they did something right:)

Okay: seriously? You and five guys you know haven't had problems, so therefore his opinion is skewed because he reads Slashdot?

Yeah, I see a lot of seemingly intelligent slashdot readers who are very out of touch with reality, especially in regards to MS products. Obviously it's a common bias here, but certainly not representative as a whole.

I've had my 360 for over two years and never seen the RROD. Same can be said for the 5 other people I know who have them. People whose only exposure to the world is through slashdot have a very skewed perspective on things.

This is a case of a "blame it on slashdot" cop-out. I think the 360 failure thing is the view of general people who don't own a 360. First impressions will last for those people for a while. I still remember reading about an ign editor going through 2 different xbox 360 systems when the hardware failure rate was still really high. It's stories like that that stick to people.

+5 informative?! You might want to look in a mirror and check out your sampling of six out of 22 million consoles for a skewed perspective. Here's a sample of 1040: a failure rate of 16.4% after six to ten months. [typepad.com] This doesn't include returns directly to Microsoft or problems other than hardware failure. 60% of the failures were RRoDs and 18% were disc reading errors.

That doesn't apply to the newer 360s. They have a lower failure rate, but it's still a much bigger problem than it is with other consol

And when it inevitably dies (because, let's face it, you'll go through two+ every three years), you have to call the manufacturer and beg to have it fixed.

I've had my 360 Elite for 2-ish years now. No problems with it. Maybe it continues to work OK because, I dunno, I'm not retarded and don't keep it in a poorly-ventilated AV box or down on the carpet/floor to fill with dust bunnies?

Not saying that people haven't had problems with 360s in the past... Those were well-published. Most 360 owners (and PS3 I guess) are fine, though.

I got off the gaming PC treadmill 3-4 years ago and haven't looked back. My computers are for work, and the consoles are for play

We've had the XBox for just under a year now and up until about 2 weeks ago, no problems. I have two scratched disk because of the console and unfortunately for me, they don't fall in the Microsoft XBox Disk Replacement Plan (does not include Activision CoD and EA Games NFL 2008). I'm in the process of sending it back for repair. The disk on the other hand will not be addressed by Microsoft. Their solution, according to the support technician I spoke with, is to return the game to the point of purchase

In my three years of XBox360 I had the RoD once two months ago. MS Website -> file request -> prepaid shipping box arrived next day -> UPS store -> XBox 360 with long letter of profuse apology and one free month of XBox Live four days later.

While I have had a 360 die with a RROD, I still think your argument is laughable. If I had a nickel for every time I've upgraded my computer, and had something not work quite right after, I'd have a mountain of nickels by now. I'll take the Xbox 360 failure results (get MS RMA issued over the internet, ship console in, get console back) over the PC results (diagnose problem [i.e. no rings to look at], purchase replacement hardware because old hardware is obsolete or broken, take system apart and replace f

You're right; instead, you have to hope your 360 turns on and doesn't Red Ring. And when it inevitably dies (because, let's face it, you'll go through two+ every three years), you have to call the manufacturer and beg to have it fixed. On the bright side, the entire repair process only takes a month!

You're right, the RROD was a problem until recently. But you know what, mine broke about 2.5y into its lifetime, so your estimate is a bit off. Not to mention when I called MS I hardly had to "beg", all I did was tell them I red-ringed, and they were extremely quick and helpful in getting it replaced. Oh, and it took a week, not a month.

Wow, trolling much? I've got a launch 360 and an elite 360, neither of which has red ringed in the entire time I've used them (and used them pretty hard on a regular basis). Add to that bringing them on several trips across the Atlantic, a number of trips across the US, and several other smaller trips without massive safety precautions.

So yeah, I WAS saying something about how it WORKS. Please feel free to try again but in the meantime crawl back under your bridge.

But then that erases console gaming's big advantage over PC gaming: low cost per player. If you're going to splurge for a separate system for each player, you might as well play a PC shooter instead of Gears 2 and benefit from mouse aiming.

By gum, you're right! It is cheaper to buy a another gaming PC than it is to buy another xBox.

Splitting left/right drastically constrains your peripheral vision in the horizontal plane. Given that 90%+ of the time you are on a surface that is either mostly flat, or at a fairly fixed slope, you don't need up/down very often. Add to that the fact that on a console (unlike a PC/mouse combo), turning can be laborious, and you only have about 45-60 degrees of useful up/down movement, but you always need to be able to go through 360 degrees of rotational movement, I'd much rather see more of the horizontal plane.

Of course, either approach is still better than Halo 3's moronic "if you play split screen, you are forced to 4:3, no widescreen for you" BS.

Vertical split is almost always better, even with 4:3 the screen is wider than it is tall, so use the space properly devs! Horizontal is just stupid; and on a widescreen, I have to wonder what the hell they were thinking.

I haven't started the game yet, just finishing the prequel book Gears of War: Asphos Fields. It gives really good back story. Dom, Carlos(Dom's brother's and Marcus as kids and growing up in the Army, Marcus and his father, Dom and his missing wife. It is also written by a good author Karen Traviss which is the reason I picked it up. The world has a lot of depth. To me it is essential to the story.

Essential to it? It is the story. Like Halo, it probably has a good story but almost none of it is in the actual game. When I finished the first GoW, I didn't even know it was on another planet till I read it in Wikipedia...

Recently I've rented the PC version of GoW and I was little dissapointed. I played it after finishing call of duty 4 and crysis, and I feel the gameplay is so simplified (when gaming with traditional WASD+mouse) that you end playing with walk->hide behind a column->zoom->fire->walk->repeat. Of course, it's a perfect combination for a gamepad but PC gamers expect a slightly more elaborated controls (ie. _something_ more to do) to enjoy a game. Moreover, its linearity is what killed the fun; wh

Unreal Tournament 3 did the same thing to the PC. I believe Epic made both and is on the forefront with their "Piracy is destroying the PC!!!!" rants. UT 2K4 and the original UT were so good that it makes me sad they won't be putting more effort into PC-only games.

Aside from the cover-fire system, this game is nothing new. Sure it has great graphics and sound...but it's the same fire, fire fire, run, press a switch, fire, open a door, fire gameplay.

Typical, type-A personality crap. I'm sorry, but I desire more from my games.

We will not be talking about this game in a year or so. We will, however, still be talking about games like Bioshock, Dead Space and Fallout 3 which (in this writer's estimation) revolutionize the gamer's interactivity and immersive experience.

I don't understand comments like this, really. When was the last time you saw *one* really new thing in a major game? Portal? Bioshock is System Shock - awesome, but not new. Considering the popularity of three versions of Halo, with zero new things, just smoothing out old problems with the console FPS, I'd say console shooters will take creativity where they get it.

So basically you're complaining that a First Person Shooter is about shooting?

The graphics were pretty groundbreaking and the story was decent, as FPS games go it's definitely one of the best and it's definitely up there with Bioshock. I'm not saying Gears 2 is better than Bioshock as a single player game because Bioshock was cool but the fact it has multiplayer and a good coop mode means I'm far more likely to replay it than Bioshock. Not started Dead Space and Fallout 3 yet but I do have them sat there wa

There are a lot of people, like you, who want more depth from games, but I don't feel as though we're the majority.

It's the people who play the beefed up, run-and-gun, action FPS games that dominate the market. Gears of War 2 [vgchartz.com] has already sold more copies on the Xbox 360 in its first week than Bioshock [vgchartz.com] has sold in its lifetime on the Xbox 360.

It's the same way with films as well. The big studio action film is generally going to do better than the well-made independent film.

Not all games need to be incredibly deep or innovative. Just like how not all movies need to be the Godfather, a well-made, mindless action movie can be plenty entertaining, and just as worthy of the price of admission.

To go with the movie analogy... Gears of War is to Fallout 3 as Jurassic Park is to Fallout 3. One is a popcorn movie with incredible special effects, the other is not about all that, but both are great movies.

I do believe we will still talk about Gears years from now, just like we still talk

WTF is the point of bitching about a genre you don't like? Don't like it? Fine. Stick at RTS's etc. But just because it isn't your cup of tea doesn't diminish how much enjoyment that many(obviously millions) get out of the game. Gears of War is the pinnacle of "run and gun" style gameplay. There are other better FPSers out there but for the style of play you really can't do better.

Its a great game, the automatch time and bugged shotgun need fixing though. Its missing some features you thought would be for sure- like the ability to see pings, the ability to quickly mute people, the ability to quit out of the game without turning off your xbox 360. Etc.

My biggest complaint is the automatch time and the fact they took out the grind-up/grind down noise when you die/retry.

This is actually a good thing. I'm sick and tired of multiplayer matches that might have been ok except that half of one team (and I don't care whether its mine or not) drops after the first round because they got their feelings hurt. If you really have to go you still have the option to pull the plug, but I don't see why we should make it any easier.

"The nature of the cover system also impedes movement at times, causing you to become briefly stuck in a place you don't want to be, or to leave cover in a manner other than what you intended. It can be bothersome at times, but I don't know how they could avoid it"

Mimic the GRAW 2 cover system. It's the best game on the 360 for that reason.

I felt the opposite. The graphics was much improved from the last game. The lighting is much softer and much better - the shadows not as artificially dark as the previous game. Overall the graphics have been improved massively.

I would hazard a guess that most people who didn't enjoy the campaign mode in Gears 1/2 played alone. I played through the first multiple times and am just about to finish the second, exclusively co-op with real world friends over Live. I have never played alone and don't care to.

I don't think many would argue that the gameplay isn't fairly simple. But it's just done so well. The level design, overall production, everything comes together to just make an incredible experience.

For some reason, tearing is seen as acceptable (and even desireable, by some nutters) on PCs (and by extension, XBoxes, since many of the XBox programmers are probably just directx programmers who've been encouraged to develop for XBox too).

Even back in Amiga days, it was well known that double-buffering and synchronisation with the screen refresh lead to nice, smooth, constant play which was vastly superior to jerky or ugly animation. In fact, I learnt it with some of my very first beginner programmers ga